transsexual
Americannoun
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a person whose gender identity does not correspond to their sex assigned at birth; transgender.
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a person who has undergone or wants to undergo hormone therapy or surgery to align their physical characteristics more closely with their gender identity.
adjective
noun
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a person who permanently acts the part of and completely identifies with the opposite sex
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a person who has undergone medical and surgical procedures to alter external sexual characteristics to those of the opposite sex
Sensitive Note
The vocabulary around transsexualism originated in medical study of human sexuality. In the 1980s, transsexualism was listed as a mental illness in the manuals of the American Psychological Association and the World Health Organization. Transsexual and transsexualism are generally no longer used in the medical or psychological professions, having been replaced by gender dysphoria in medical terminology. Today, the transsexual identity is perceived to fall under the wider umbrella term trans, though it is not exactly equivalent to the term transgender. Transsexual is still sometimes the preferred term among older trans people who have been using the term transsexual to describe their own identity for years. However, owing to the previous association of transsexual with a mental disorder diagnosis, and a history of disparaging use in popular culture, the term is now often considered offensive in general use, especially among younger speakers. There is also some tension between the terms transsexual and transgender, the former term associated with external and physical markers of gender identity, and the latter with internal identification along a gender continuum. Still other speakers use the two terms interchangeably. As always when using identity labels, the best choice is the one with which the person in question self-identifies. See also transgender.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of transsexual
First recorded in 1905–10, for an earlier sense; 1955–60 for the current senses; trans- + sexual, originally in transsexualism, coined in 1953 by German-American sexologist Harry Benjamin (1885–1986)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Played by then-unknowns Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick, the couple find Frank-N-Furter is hosting a convention of partying aliens in formalwear from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy Transylvania.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 25, 2025
Transsexual individuals can receive baptism in the Roman Catholic Church “if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating public scandal,” according to a new Vatican policy statement.
From Washington Times • Nov. 9, 2023
“Kate’s trans status was simply and elegantly revealed to the reader with a close-up of a button on her jacket that said ‘Put a Transsexual Lesbian on the Supreme Court.’”
From Washington Post • Apr. 14, 2023
She helped establish a non-profit group, Life Inspired For Transsexual Foundation, to promote transsexual rights.
From Seattle Times • Oct. 26, 2022
In 1966, Harry Benjamin, an endocrinologist, published “The Transsexual Phenomenon,” a landmark study of transgender identity.
From The New Yorker • Sep. 16, 2019
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
